The genius cucullatus, or the Original Hoodie

Genius Cucullatus from Tullie House

Picture time! See this fella? He’s a genius cucullatus, to give him his Latin name, but whether he was a Roman import or a native, his original owner wouldn’t have called him that. Genius cucullatus just means, ‘spirit in a hood’. This one, which was found at Birdoswald on Hadrian’s Wall, is the only one in Britain which is a single standing statue. They’re usually carved in relief on a flat stone, and in Britain, they are often depicted in groups of three.I wish it was simple matter to tell you what he represents, but that’s not possible. He’s often linked with

One ring to rule them all… the 9thc Kingmoor Ring

Picture time!

Kingmoor Ring copyright British Museum

I bet you’re thinking, ‘ooh, that looks a bit like the ring in Lord of the Rings’. Well, you wouldn’t be far wrong. This ring is 9^th century and made by anglo-saxons, and JRR Tolkien was an expert in anglo-saxon language and literature. I don’t doubt he knew the Kingmoor Ring very well.

It’s called the Kingmoor Ring because it was found at

The Ambleside Hoard: 4,000 year-old bronze weapons

Cumbria’s very lucky this summer to have a number of stunning local artefacts on display that we wouldn’t normally be able to see. Tullie House in Carlisle has borrowed the Sewell’s Lane Jug and Embleton Sword from the British Museum; the Dock Museum in Barrow-in-Furness has a hoard of Viking coins until mid July; and the Armitt Museum in Ambleside has persuaded the BM to let them borrow their very own hoard.

Ambleside hoard, copyright British Museum

The Ambleside Hoard comprises two swords, a dagger and a rather impressive spear head. They were made from bronze in the aptly named Bronze Age and could be 4,000 years old*.

The Bewcastle Cauldron

Here’s a picture I thought you might be interested in. It’s the Bewcastle Cauldron, and it’s in Tullie House Museum in Carlisle.

Bewcastle Cauldron, Tullie House, Carlisle

I wish I’d had a ruler on me for scale when I took the picture – it’s enormous! – certainly big enough to hide a couple of six-year-olds.

Loki: Cumbria’s man in chains

One of the joys of having your own blog is the statistics. I know that doesn’t sound riveting, but look at this collection of Google search terms that apparently led people to my blog:

How long does ham keep in the freezer¹

Loki stone at Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria

Blimey – usage history²

What to call colour which shines every colour³

Is eveling a word?⁴

Mistress with man in chains⁵

I’ll gloss over the first four, but the fifth reminded me very much of the 10^th-century, viking-made Loki stone at Kirkby Stephen in the Eden Valley (which should tell you plenty about the way my mind works). It was found in 1870, and after a short sojourn on display in the churchyard, it was moved inside the church to protect it from the weather. This is a hefty chunky of sandstone with a carved figure with horns, a beard, a belt, and chains. He doesn’t look too happy about it, but then, according to Norse mythology, those chains are actually his son’s entrails.

Cocidius, the Cumbrian god

Cocidius altar, Tullie House, Carlisle

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there were people here before the Romans. But they were here, leaving echoes of their lives and beliefs through place names, 5,800-year-old tools and 2,000-year-old weapons. When the Romans first encountered us 2,000 years ago, they wrote down some of the things they discovered. They said that there was a people in northern Cumbria called the Carvetii, ‘the deer people’, who were a sub-group of a large northern tribe called the Brigantes – at least that’s what the Romans called them; we don’t know what

Eveling, Cumbria’s faery king and Celtic god

I can’t honestly say my Cumbrian grandparents ever mentioned faeries. And yet, when I look into Cumbrian History & Folklore, I find them all the time. Normally they’re a clue to a history that has faded from popular memory; faery processions at crossroads and over mountains, treading routes to ancient burial grounds, and Bronze Age barrows that turn into faery halls.

Walls Castle,Ravenglass Copyright Mick Knapton

The coastal village of Ravenglass is pre-eminent amongst these with its claim to be home of Eveling, King of the Faeries. He lives in the ruins of the Roman castle of Glanoventa (Walls Castle) – complete with luxurious indoor plumbing – with his daughter, Modron. His rath or fort is at Mediobogdum, the ruins of a Roman fort located on the hair-raising Hardknott Pass between Eskdale and the central Lake District.

Elf-shot by mermaids…

It’s a good theory that faeries are most strongly associated with the ‘Celtic Fringe’ (Scotland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Cornwall and Wales) because these areas were not overrun by later beliefs that came with the Romans and Anglo-Saxons. Cumbria also largely missed out on the Saxons, so our traditions have a lot in common with the classic Celtic areas. But a perusal of a map, never mind a tome of folklore, shows that Cumbria has at least as many elves as faeries.

Dancing Elves (1866) by August Malmstrom

The word, ‘elf’ is derived from ‘alfar’, the Scandinavian word for diminutive supernatural types; they are, if you like, Viking faeries. There are several Elf Howes; the Elfa Hills; Elva Hill, Elva Plain and Elva stone circle; Elf Hall at Hallthwaites, Ellabarrow at Pennington, and lots more.